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Afrocentric images from and of the elsewhere. At the same time, being set in the diaspora, thesefilms give diasporic audiences a sense of proximity with the story that is narrated. This proximitymakes them feel represented and thus closer to the content of the video itself.IX: Zero Your Mind: a Nigerian just arrived in BerlinX: Blinded Devil: prostitution traffickingThe second genre that I have identified might be defined as the “migration drama”. The filmsthat belong to this genre are quite common. Almost all companies at one point during their activityhave experimented with this narrative category. Films of this kind include Under Pressure, ZeroYour Mind, Desperate Heart, Mama Why Me? and most of GVK productions (image IX and X).These films are in most of the cases explicitly based on the life experiences of the director/producerof the film, and intend to show to Nigerian audiences the reality of the migration experience beyondthe Eldorado imaginary that characterizes much of the Nigerian popular discourse about Europe.These films often emphasize the hardship of the immigrant life and the violence that characterizesit. They underline the sacrifices that a migrant has to pass through to be able to send someremittances home, and they highlight the psychological pressure that family’s and friends’expectations back home put on the person that lives abroad. As I have discussed earlier in relationto GVK’s productions, by centering their plot on migration-related issues these films also try toaddress European audiences and funding agencies, that, when it comes to migration, usually supportsocially-oriented rather than entertainment-oriented productions. This strategy can also be observedin relation to some of the recent Nigerian productions in Northern America, such as LonzoNnzekwe’s Anchor Baby and Onyekachi Ejim’s The Tenant. Both films try to address Americanand African cinema audiences by developing highly dramatic socially- and politically-orientedstories. In these films the attempt to reach Western audiences is strengthened by the use of Westernactors in central roles and by the relevance that these characters have in the plot.190
Within this genre, crime stories and prostitution-trafficking-related plots constitute a kind ofsubgenre, which is particularly developed in continental Europe, probably in relation to the specificsocial reality that Nigerian migrants experience in countries like Italy, Belgium, Holland andGermany. In films such as Akpegi Boyz, Holland Heat and Run but Can’t Hide, the drama of themigration experience is transformed into a gangster type of story, in which the problems that manyNigerians experience abroad (criminality, rivalry between Nigerian gangs, drug dealing, prostitutiontrafficking) are both addressed and commoditized. The dramatic aspects of these experiences arelargely shown, but this is done while also following the rules of the gangster movie genre, in whichthe gangster is often a charismatic and fascinating character and the female protagonist (in thesecases often a prostitute) has some elements of the femme-fatale-kind of character in Hollywoodmovies. However, the plots of the migration-drama films, in both the autobiographic-type and thegangster-type subgenres, maintain an aspect that is common to most Nigerian videos, that is, astrong moral pattern that polarizes the narrative in terms of a radical opposition between the Goodand the Evil. Within this framework, the difficulties a character goes through are interpreted as theconsequence of his wrongdoings, and the solution of the drama comes as a sort of redemption inwhich the “right” moral behavior prevails.The third genre that I have identified during my research might be called the “identity-centereddrama”. This genre is yet rather underdeveloped and it characterizes particularly the work of thecompanies that have addressed the international market most radically, and that are particularlyinterested in attracting African diasporic audiences of the second, third and further generations,such as for instance the Black British and the African American audiences. Good examples of filmsof this kind are Obi Emelonye’s The Mirror Boy and, in the United States, Toni Abulu’s Back toAfrica (image XI and XII). In these films the protagonist is always a second generation African (inEmelonye’s film a Gambian and in Abulu’s film a Nigerian) who is pushed by various reasons toexplore his African identity through a trip to Africa. The strong focus on identity-related issues tendto make these films relatively unsuccessful in Nigeria, where being “African” is hardly asproblematic as it can be for a second generation migrant. As Abulu (2010) has underlined inrelation to his film Back to Africa and as the Nigerian journalist Derin Ajao (2011) has reported inrelation to The Mirror Boy, these films did not have the expected success when shown in Nigeria,but they achieved significant commercial results abroad. In ways similar to those identified bynumerous Indian scholars in relation to Bollywood’s NRI films (cf. Punathambekar 2005), theNigerian diasporic films of the identity-centered-drama genre tend to reify the concept of “Africanculture” and put forward rather conservative systems of values. Within this context, an idealized191
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Università degli Studi di Napoli
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P. 169 CHAPTER VII. Nollywood abroa
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owner or any of his friends. Once t
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Nollywood. From this analysis it tr
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phenomenon, affirming new aesthetic
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CHAPTER IDefining the field of enqu
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wave of young scholars interested i
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“Small screen cinema”: The hist
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villagers could assemble to watch
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content to an audience disappointed
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event that made the industry. While
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Pentecostal churches’ Sunday serv
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the essential heterogeneity, fluidi
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) The social life of thingsWhen con
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the art or fashion market, is accel
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QuestionsNollywood, as a phenomenon
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Throughout the three sections that
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who was shooting a video in those d
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The Nigerian video industry has lon
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CHAPTER IIRegulating mobility, resh
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The production crisisWhen the video
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distribution than the video format
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As Jora emphasizes through a number
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impact on the video industry’s ec
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systems of rules that regulate the
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(Meagher 2003: 59). Informal market
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distribution points for pirated goo
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conducted by the numerous artists'
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imperialism. In many cases the comb
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Governor Fashola seems to be losing
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CHAPTER III.From Nollywood to Nolly
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on the contrary tended to reduce th
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Emmanuel Isikaku, the president of
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you now have two distinct formation
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willingness to screen Nigerian film
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Paths of formalization (II): The di
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the United States and then in Ghana
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etween the video-boom era and the n
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will discuss further below, many of
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Nollywood is normally consumed, sho
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SECTION IITHE “NOLLYWOODIZATION
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transnational reformulations of the
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time, metaculture tends to develop
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CHAPTER IVWhen the Nigerian video i
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Haynes’ skepticism about “name
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production about the phenomenon sta
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epresent his national identity, bot
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happened even if, as I will discuss
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consciousness, but as the true, aut
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is not. 84 This debate has often as
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the world in our home videos is all
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“Nollywood” and the Nigerian vi
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Nigerian productions in English, ar
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in terms of both the industrial inf
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it is possible to say that yet no N
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and on children selling snacks alon
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To give their films a plot, many do
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Within this context it might be imp
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epresent the industry are those tha
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What seems to be the major challeng
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Amongst the numerous festivals that
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ather documentarian orientation, as
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It is important to underline here t
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economic and social reality from wh
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The reaction that the international
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Marco Perugini, a sound and light t
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Page 180 and 181: the profits (image II). Furthermore
Page 182 and 183: while excluding others. To better d
Page 184 and 185: As I mentioned above the work of GV
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Page 194 and 195: CONCLUSIONVideos’ mobility and Ni
Page 196 and 197: New modes of operation emerged, and
Page 198 and 199: industry. This shift is provoking i
Page 200 and 201: authoring than our ideology and our
Page 202 and 203: the audience to interrogate the fil
Page 204 and 205: Toward a redefinition of Nigerian c
Page 206 and 207: FilmographyA Very Very Short Story
Page 208 and 209: L’industrie audiovisuelle au Ghan
Page 210 and 211: The Tenant. Dir. Onyekachi Ejim. Br
Page 212 and 213: Adesokan, Akin. 2004a. “How they
Page 214 and 215: Bazin, André. 1971. What is Cinema
Page 216 and 217: Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. 2000. “Mult
Page 218 and 219: ---. 2007d. “Nnebue: The anatomy
Page 220 and 221: ---. Forthcoming. “Karishika with
Page 222 and 223: ---. 2005. “Social capital or ana
Page 224 and 225: Oduko, O.A. 1980. “Kung Fu tips t
Page 226 and 227: Punathambekar, Aswin. 2005. “Boll
Page 228 and 229: ---. 2000. “Images of the reel th
Page 230 and 231: Aihe, Okoh. 1997. “Video: farewel
Page 232 and 233: Lasisi. Akeem. 2009. “Tinsel bene
Page 234 and 235: InterviewsAbulu, Tony (Nigerian dir
Page 236: Sandretti, Simone (Italian director
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